Introduction/Home Page by Ira Jacknis Introduction to Tzintzuntzan by the Anthropologist George Foster/ Map of Tzintzuntzan/ The First Fieldwork: 1944–46 Mariano Cornelio, a Tarascan fisherman/farmer, in his boat Vicente Rendon and his compadre Salvador Villagomes harvesting maize Vicente Rendón on the way to market with pottery Family at the grave on All Saints’ Day Jesús Peña making candles Tarascan masked dancers, "owner" and "watcher", at the Octava of Corpus Christi Highway victim Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 1945–79 and 1979-88 View towards the northwest side of Lake Pátzcuaro Yácatas, reconstructed ruins on the east edge of the village Doña Micaela González, in her small patio Melecio Hernández, husband of Micaela González, making an ox yoke Micaela González’s house; in front are her daughter Virginia Pichu, and William Iler, a UC Berkeley graduate student The new second floor on Micaela González’s house; Mary Foster on the balcony Dolores (Lola) Pichu and her younger sister Virginia Pichu, daughters of Micaela González and her first husband, Pedro Pichu Pachita Villagómez and her husband Faustino Peña Doña Andrea Medina, her daughter-in-law Pachita Villagómez, and her granddaughter Lucía Lupe Calderon and Eustolio Campos coming out of the parish church after their wedding Florentina Dominga, a Tarascan woman, with a midwife’s offering La Soledad chapel The arrival of fireworks (La Obra) at La Parroquia, the Parish church Death dancer, Salvador Maturino Red devil dancer Female attendants of the king and queen figures, Rosa Lara Group of spies entering the house of Ambrosio Zaldívar, to pay homage to the district saint (barrio santo) and to be fed; Holy Wednesday A spy; Holy Wednesday A penitente, with his assistant (cirineo); Good Friday Fish dancer and net in the procession of trades; Corpus Christi Little Old Man Dance (Los Viejitos) House façade decorated for a posada procession; before breaking the piñatas; Christmas season Tarascan women making tortillas by hand, cooked on a wood fire Lola Pichu making tortillas in a press, inside her present old-style kitchen Amalia Felices making pots, by joining two mold-made halves and smoothing the inside Doña Andrea Medina at the kiln in her yard Otilia Zavala, wife of Wenceslado Peña, glazing pottery Pachita Villagómez painting a fish design on a large platter, before glazing Salvador Cuirís and his pottery delivery truck Pottery sellers in the church atrium; Fiesta of Nuestro Señor del Rescate The store, "La Central," and the plaza on the main highway, looking south Lola Pichu inside her family’s store; Christmas Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 1988–2000 George Foster Biography Tzintzuntzan, Mexico: Photographs by George Foster George M. Foster—professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley from 1953 to 1979—is well known for his half century of ethnographic fieldwork in Tzintzuntzan, a town on Lake Pátzcuaro, in Michoacán, Mexico. This work has formed the basis for important contributions to the study of peasant societies and to the subfields of medical and applied anthropology. Underlying it all has been his development of methodologies for long-term research. Until now, however, his extensive use of photography has remained largely hidden. Like many anthropologists of his generation, George Foster was taught that "all forms of behavior, all data, have meaning, and that they are relevant to interpretation and explanation, even if this relevance is not apparent at the time they are noted or recorded." Consequently, he tried to record as much ethnographic data as possible. "Whenever I go to the field, I always take a camera. When I would go around calling on informants, whether I was there for a long interview or just a few words, I always carried a camera with me." Returning home, he has used photographs for lectures (in undergraduate courses) and for illustrating books and articles on material culture (especially pottery), dances, and fiestas. Yet because of publishing constraints, he was not able to reproduce many of these pictures and never in their original color. Professor Foster's approach to long-term fieldwork and the place of photography in it is evident from his comment, "When, in 1960, I found that quite unconsciously I was putting our Tzintzuntzan photographs in the family photograph album, I knew that our ties with the village would be permanent." This exhibition is based on nearly 4,000 photographs in black and white, color, and 16 mm. film formats, shot by George Foster over more than half a century (1945-99). In his first study of Tzintzuntzan, 1944-46, he used both Kodachrome color and black and white film. Returning in 1958, he used color slides almost exclusively until the 1970s, when he frequently supplemented color slides with color print film. Professor Foster curated the exhibition in collaboration with Ira Jacknis (visual anthropology curator) and Barbara Takiguchi (exhibition coordinator). Selecting from thousands of pictures was a difficult task, but we strove to highlight Foster's major subjects and consultants over his five decades of research. All label copy has been taken from edited selections of George Foster's publications, principally his two monographs on Tzintzuntzan: Empire's Children: The People of Tzintzuntzan (1948) and the three editions of Tzintzuntzan: Mexican Peasants in a Changing World (1967, 1979a, 1988); as well as his summary essay, "Fieldwork in Tzintzuntzan: The First Thirty Years" (1979b). For this exhibition, Professor Foster has written a summary statement on his fieldwork from 1988 through 2000. To underscore the importance of long-term change in his Tzintzuntzan research, the dates of the excerpts are given in parenthesis. In many ways, this exhibit is an inversion of normal practice; instead of finding pictures to illustrate an already written text, we matched up the words with the selected images. The result is an engrossing portrait of a Mexican peasant community in the twentieth century. Ira Jacknis Associate Research Anthropologist Hearst Museum of Anthropology This exhibit was funded in part by a grant from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). http://ucmexus.ucr.edu/index.htm For more information on George Foster's publications visit: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Anthro/foster/pub/fo40.html For more information on George Foster and his research visit: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Anthro/foster/index.html Visit the The George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/ CONTINUE >